Any difficulty playing different Scale Lengths and Nut Widths?

[skilsaw]

Does scale length and nut width make a perceptible difference when changing from one guitar to another? Should a player consider scale length and nut width when selecting a guitar?

 

 

 

I was looking at the small body guitar specs on the Gibson Products page and noticed the the scale lengths ranged from 22.75" to 25.00". Nut widths ranged from 1.720" to 1.750"

 

Just for comparison, the Scale length on my son's SJ200 is 25.50" and the Nut Width 1.725"

[the dog]

Does scale length and nut width make a perceptible difference when changing from one guitar to another? Should a player consider scale length and nut width when selecting a guitar?

 

 

 

I was looking at the small body guitar specs on the Gibson Products page and noticed the the scale lengths ranged from 22.75" to 25.00". Nut widths ranged from 1.720" to 1.750"

 

Just for comparison, the Scale length on my son's SJ200 is 25.50" and the Nut Width 1.725"

 

personally I think it's a great idea to play different scale length.....

When I went from my Les Paul to my Ibanez it was different for me...

 

Say I was playing lead and I'm going from the third or fifth fret to the say 12th fret on the Ibanez and if I'm not watching my left hand I'll slide up short to maybe the 10th or 11th fret.....

[vangoghsear]

I seem to have more trouble with nut width than scale length. If they're too narrow, they are uncomfortable for me and I don't even have large hands. If they are too wide, I tend to fret the chords wrong, or if playing lead I may find myself on a different string than I intended.

 

Scale wise, my guitars are all over the place, so I tend to watch my left hand for a while till I can tell where I am. I don't memorize lead phrases, so my muscle memory doesn't get in my way.

[capmaster]

There are lots of aspects of which scale length and nut width are just two. Besides some others, string spacings, neck profile, fretboard radius and fret wire profile come into play. There are lots of tradeoffs between those factors.

 

For sure one can reason about particular numbers, but the very point I think will be how an entire instrument feels.

[Pin]

I notice a difference between Fender and Gibson scale lengths but only when I play down by the nut and then more in terms of spread type chords like F7.

[milod]

Even scale and nut width are affected as well by the overall shape of the instrument.

 

For example, the Dot has the 24 3/4 scale and 1.68 nut - but I swear the neck's longer and the nut narrower than on my 25 1/2 inch scale PR5e. Yeah, I measured the stuff too and as far as I can tell both are to spec. It's the overall shape of the instrument. In fact, I had a few emails back and forth with Epi1 Jim on it.

 

Let's put it this way, I can get far more out of an ES175 type shape and 24 3/4 scale than I can outa the Dot or any other instrument. And for what I do with guitar I can get more outa the PR5e than I can out of the EL00 Pro regardless that the EL00 has a shorter scale.

 

So I'm absolutely convinced there's more to it than just scale and nut width. It's the geometry of holding a given instrument with a given player's physical dimensions.

 

Yes, IMHO there are some required differences in technique with different scale. My early-mid '50s Harmony archtop has a 24 inch scale on a baseball bat neck, but was so easy to play all sorts of country rock as in CCR that I played out with it for about a year and a half in the late '70s. Yeah, a Harmony and yeah, a 24-inch scale and the neck otherwise is horrid, albeit still nice and straight at some 60 years old.

 

I have a Gretsch full archtop hollow with a 25 3/4 scale and 16-inch body that's nice but... I only use it for certain material because it just doesn't "work" at the lower frets like a shorter scale on something like the 175.

 

But... "shorter scale" isn't so much the deal as how that scale is attached to what shape guitar body.

 

Then again, I'm old and ain't changed my head all that much in ways since the '70s - more facile and a lot more "stuff" overall, but I think the "hold" and physical approach ain't changed.

 

m

[Markini]

I notice a difference between Fender and Gibson scale lengths but only when I play down by the nut and then more in terms of spread type chords like F7.

 

Yeah, usually only takes me a few minutes to readjust to different scale lengths. Right now I am fooling around with my GS Mini and it took a few minutes to

 

compensate. I have large hands too. I am persistent, I will adapt to play any guitar configuration. Gibson 24 3/4" scale is my sweet spot though.

 

 

 

[Kimbabig]

I wouldn't say difficulty, but there certainly is a difference when switching between a classical guitar neck and the narrower neck of an electric guitar.

[milod]

Kimba - you have that one correctly for sure.

 

Actually sometimes on certain guitars with narrower nut - roughly 1.7 inches - I'll use one finger to fret two strings, but I can't do that at the lower frets on some 25 1/2 scale instruments as I can on most 24 3/4 scale instruments. Then again, I have relatively small hands and fingers. Still, I can usually barre up a root "G" chord - it's just easier on a narrower strings spacing.

 

But again, I'm not at all sure how much is scale, per se, and how much the overall guitar configuration. The advantage to a real "classical guitar" is that regardless of materials, quality and such, in theory they're pretty much all the same size. It's with the steel string variations and new AE "for electric guitar players" nylon string instruments that we have the huge variety of additional variations of shapes, sizes, scales...

 

Then there are the 12-strings and such. Sheesh.

 

m